New Jersey Report

or perhaps it should be entitled, my trip into Bon Jovi Land. Anyone who likes Bon Jovi would love the radio stations out there. They play his music all the time. The good news about New Jersey, however, is that it is full of places to skate. There was a park five minutes away from my brothers place. After getting lost on the garden state parkway(seven lanes per side), I finally found Sayerville. The park was nearly empty and I was riding well. I didn't ride the oververt, but then I normally stay away from that anyway. It was a lot like Nashville's flow area. Nice transitions, easy to ride, everything flowed together...if your in New Jersey stop there.

The next park on my list was in Flemington. Pay park, 6 foot, street course, indoors, helmets required, lots of kids following me around with a video camera asking me how long I had been skating and all that. I could have skipped this park. From what I understood, most of the east coast parks are a lot like this one. Some place to drop off the kids. With all the places to street skate, the best skaters don't really hang out at the parks. FDR, on the other hand, wasn't like that at all.

Philly is not the kind of place you would want to drop your kids off at while you went to the mall. This is no doubt the roughest park I have ever seen. Brick coping, tight transitions, graffiti everwhere... It was awesome. I took a hipper within ten minutes of being there. Some other guy went over his handlebars and left a pool of blood at the bottom of one of the bowls. I'm sure this park has had it's share of carnage. I heartily recommend this park to everyone. As the graffiti says, Get your Gnar on.



As I still had 700 something miles to go to get home, I took a short cut through Athens, OH. It was somewhat of a let down after FDR. It was also hot. I crossed the Appalachian to find it summertime in the mid-west. Athens was built by the same guy as Sayerville, yet it wasn't as much fun to me. Perhaps I was just missing Louisville by then.

A good trip overall, but now that I'm home the real business has to begin. Ramp building is awesome, but taking one apart is a sad event. With luck, it will be rebuilt and better than ever next weekend.